


summer's around the corner

by paperpenpal



Series: Read the Syllabus [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Day 7: Free Day, F/M, Fluff, I can't believe the teacher AU is a thing now, No Beta, Romance, Secret Relationship, Sylvgrid Week (Fire Emblem), Teacher AU, this was supposed to be a joke but somehow it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperpenpal/pseuds/paperpenpal
Summary: Ingrid is pretty sure her students are trying to set her up with Sylvain, but the thing is…she’s kind of…already dating him.OrSeveral scenes from a burgeoning secret relationship that everyone is already rooting for.(That American High School Teacher AU that someone actually asked for and that I wrote because of it.)
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Read the Syllabus [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778224
Comments: 18
Kudos: 86
Collections: Sylvgrid week 2020





	summer's around the corner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nicole_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/gifts), [Nightsdawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightsdawn/gifts), [Julx3tte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/gifts), [sunnilee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnilee/gifts).



> I was absolutely not going to write a continuation to my Day 6 AU because it was just so...silly and yet somehow, somehow, after much discord brainstorming, this is now a thing.
> 
> For the nonAmericans:  
> Sophomore: 2nd year high school student  
> Senior: Last year in high school  
> Senioritis: That thing everyone gets when they burn out in their last year of school

On Wednesday, Ingrid’s classroom is missing all of its whiteboard markers. She doesn’t notice it at first. In fact, it takes her quite a while to notice. Her mind tries to excuse her lack of noticing by justifying it with the fact that she’s an English teacher and her classes so far happened to be discussion based, not to mention the fact that GMA has more resources than any school she’s ever personally attended and the whiteboard has more tech in it than her car.

So she doesn’t notice until halfway through third period, in the middle of her Medieval Lit lesson, when she’s about to introduce Marie De France’s lais and goes to write it out on the board.

Despite the school having an immense and seemingly unending amount of (possible blood?) money to dump into sports and arts, it, for some reason, does not always provide the teachers with basic teaching materials. So Ingrid always buys her own supplies which means she always has enough. So it is weird when she cannot find a single whiteboard marker in her classroom. It is even weirder when her entire box of whiteboard markers with “Ms. Galatea” labeled on is not in her desk drawer.

She is already coming up with something else to do, something else she could use, she supposes she could use that really fancy tech in that really fancy board but she doesn’t like it and she, well honestly, she doesn’t really know how to use it.

“Miss Galatea?” One of her students says, tentatively raising her hand. It’s Linda Schaffer, a typically quiet but very bright girl. “Maybe Mr. Gautier has some?”

Ingrid has never, ever, borrowed anything from Sylvain. He never has anything because he uses all her supplies. He is always interrupting her lessons, knocking on the door for a pen, or some markers or something.

She knows why he claims to do this. He’s told her it’s an excuse to see her more often.

“Or maybe he took yours when he came last time.” Billy Thorn, a very large football player with a love of poetry suggests.

Ingrid presses her lips together in a thin line. She considers bothering Ashe instead for a marker but that seems a bit petty.

“Read quietly for a moment.” She instructs.

Ingrid misses the smirk that Linda and Billy throw each other as she walks out the door.

Sylvain’s classroom door is open. He has left his top button on his dress shirt unbuttoned and from the hallway, she can see him leaning casually against his teacher’s desk, soaking up the way the sunbeam hits him, feet kicked out in front of him, ankles crossed, looking way more like a lazy student than a teacher.

And of course he is like this. Of course he leans like this, hands back against the desk to hold him up, of course he is so casual while he teaches. It is why he is the most popular history and government teacher in school. It is why all the students shuffle back and forth the hallways constantly carrying his textbooks when she has to have extra copies of her required reading lying around because someone left it at home.

She’s surprised he doesn’t make his students call him by his first name.

Or maybe he does, she wouldn’t know, she has never sat in his class.

He is listening to someone speak, nodding along with a smile when she knocks against the door frame.

“Excuse me,” She says, not entering.

The class hushes, she looks into the room and sees that his classroom’s desks are arranged in a horseshoe formation, a semicircle with him at the front, so everyone can see each other.

Sylvain blinks, surprised, clearly not expecting her. After all, she has never interrupted his class before. It is always the other way around.

“Miss Galatea,” He says when he recovers. “To what do we owe the pleasure?

She ignores the way the students throw each other looks, ignores the way some of the girls in the back snicker, and several more students sigh.

“I was wondering if I could borrow a whiteboard marker. I seemed to have misplaced mine.”

Sylvain furrows his brow. He knows this is not likely but he does not make a comment about it, not when there’s an audience and half an hour left of class. “Of course,” he says, spinning to look at the board.

Strangely, he does not seem to have his whiteboard markers there either. “Erm, here you can take mine,” he says, pulling it out of his pocket.

Ingrid crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow, “Then what will you use?”

“Oh uh-”

Someone in the room, a student she knows the face of but has never taught points to the desk, “I think I saw some over there.” She says, “in your desk.”

Sylvain looks genuinely confused for a second but goes to open his drawer, then does a very poor job of hiding his surprise when he picks up a very familiar box.

He walks over to where Ingrid is still standing at the door and hands it over. Her name is clearly labeled on the box.

“I swear I didn’t take it.” He says quietly, although not quiet enough for the first two students not to hear it.

Ingrid does not have time to address this, she needs to return to her classroom, “Thank you.” She says simply.

She can hear the students snicker as she leaves.

—

When lunch rolls around and all the students have cleared out, Ingrid knocks on the door frame of Sylvain’s classroom again, where he is still talking to one of his students.

Sylvain looks up, waves, and Ingrid waits until he finishes, waits until the short sophomore runs out, but not before the girl politely says goodbye to her too.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sylvain says when they’re alone.

“What am I thinking?” She asks, stepping fully into his classroom.

“I swear I didn’t take it. I have no idea how it got there.” He holds his hands up in surrender.

Ingrid analyzes his expression and the expression of surprise he had on when he first discovered her marker box in his desk. “Are you sure you weren’t using it as another excuse?”

His grin turns lazy, casual, and all too pleased with himself, “Well, now I have many more reasons to see you.” He says, voice low and quiet.

It goes through her, goes right past her skin and down her spine, but she is very good at suppressing her reactions. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She replies coolly.

Except she does. Of course she does. They’ve been seeing each other lately, gone on more than a few dates, spent a night or two together, but they have also agreed to keep it a secret, just in case it doesn’t work out.

The last thing she needs is a thousand teenagers involved in her love life. Not to mention the staff.

Sylvain shrugs, “If you say so,” he says, not at all offended.

“So if you didn’t take it, then who did?”

“Probably someone’s idea of a prank. My students know about my giant crush on you.”

She shoves Sylvain with a laugh and they walk to the teacher’s lounge together.

—

That Friday, it isn’t until a little after six when Ingrid finally closes the door to her classroom. She did not have any other club activities to supervise today but she had been stuck in her classroom grading. It’s nearing the end of the year, which means all the students are now scrambling for extra credit, and although Ingrid can be stern, she is also relatively forgiving.

She just wishes her students would prepare for this earlier instead of pleading with her a few weeks before finals.

She’s exhausted and hungry. She cannot wait to sit on the couch and eat ice cream but that’s still half an hour away if there’s no traffic.

Sylvain catches her as walks past, “Ingrid, wait up!” He calls when he sees her in the hallway. It looks like he had also been grading away.

Ingrid waits, watches him shove the rest of the papers haphazardly in his bag, and rushes out to catch her even when she hasn’t made the move to leave without him.

“Want to come over?” He asks.

Ingrid glances around the hallway. It’s empty but he still shouldn’t be asking so boldly at school.

“Just for dinner.” He adds, “I mean, unless…”

She rolls her eyes, “Come on.” She says.

—

“You live here?!” She asks, incredulous as she pulls up to his driveway. She has never been over to his place before. It’s too close to school and he often walks to and from work so there’s too much of a risk of someone seeing them together. Most of the time. Today’s an exception. “This is your house?”

“Er- yeah,” He confirms, as she parks.

“This explains a lot.” She says as they get out of her car.

“What do you mean?” He says, reaching for his keys.

“Why the kids like you so much. " She explains gleefully as he unlocks his front door. "You were one of them!”

His house is huge. She is met immediately by a stairway to his second floor. Glancing around she can see it’s well decorated. He even has a dining room. Her own tiny studio apartment in the next town over pales in comparison to this.

“Okay, you’ve lost me there Ingrid.”

“You’re rich!” She exclaims, pointing an accusing finger at him.

“What?” He laughs, “I am not-”

“Sylvain, you own a two-story house in _Garreg Mach_ on a fifth-year teacher’s salary. If you didn’t come from money then I need to have a very serious talk with Byleth about pay disparity.”

Sylvain gives her a little chuckle but it’s not the laughter that she had expected. She wasn’t going to push but then he rubs his neck and asks, “Uh, does it bother you?”

She considers this for a second. Ingrid has never been particularly well off. Both her parents were honest hard-working blue-collar workers and she had paid for school with lots of student loans, scholarships, and a part-time job but no, it doesn’t bother her that Sylvain has money. She’s just never really known anyone with a lot of it. “Why would it?” She asks instead.

Sylvain shrugs, “I dunno, it bothers some people.”

Ingrid reaches out to his hand and gives it a squeeze. The smile he gives her, relieved and reassured, is worth more than this gorgeous house, that is certain.

—

They order delivery and bypass his dining room. Instead, she eats out of the container with her legs propped up on his lap on his white sofa while he finishes grading the rest of the papers. When she spills a glass of wine onto the cushion, he doesn’t care, and when she panics about the stain, he kisses her calm.

—

She shrieks when he comes out of the bathroom attached to his bedroom. It’s entirely excessive for a man who lives alone to have a bathroom in a master bedroom but she’s not shrieking about that.

Instead, in his borrowed clothes that she’s using to sleep in, she’s shrieking because-

“You wear glasses?!”

Sylvain is shirtless, he had come out of the shower and there is still steam rolling off of his skin, wearing pajama bottoms and the glasses.

“Since when do you wear glasses?” Ingrid continues.

“Since I was twenty.” Sylvain says, amused, “I just usually wear contacts. Why are you freaking out about this?”

“I am not freaking out about this.”

And she isn’t. She doesn’t care that Sylvain needs glasses. What she does care about is how he looks in them. It’s smart, it’s academic, it’s downright sexy.

God, what is this man doing to her?

He smirks and stares and the longer he does it, the more flushed Ingrid feels.

She feels like a teenager. God, is this what her students feel like when they see him? How does anyone ever learn anything?

Then, playfully, he reaches up, pulls his glasses off and bites one of the arms.

Ingrid buries her face into his pillow and he laughs the entire time he crawls in next to her on his massive bed.

—

On Monday, Sylvain comes to school wearing his glasses and the entire student body erupts with noise about it. Well, the ones who are enamored with him at least, which can sometimes seem like the entire student body.

No less than eight different students come up to ask for her opinion about it. Two of which came up together with a clipboard and a pen.

“We’re conducting a poll,” The familiar-looking girl says, the other girl is Linda who stands quietly behind her. “Mr. Gautier and glasses. Yes, no?”

Ingrid can’t stop her laugh but her answer is as diplomatic as always. “I think that’s up for Mr. Gautier to decide.”

The short girl boos, the other one, Linda, chimes in, “Aw, come on Miss Galatea, it’s for research purposes.”

Thankfully, the first warning bell for class rings before Ingrid needs to come up with a response and Linda hurries into her classroom. The other girl runs into Sylvain’s.

—

Ingrid joins some of the girls for lunch on Thursday in the teacher’s lounge. Sylvain has run off with Claude somewhere, yelling about chess club. It wasn’t like she was really going to eat alone with him anyway, it’d be a bit suspicious but she always seems to know where he is these days.

Mercedes and Annette are quietly chatting, welcoming her warmly when she joins them.

“Oh, Ingrid!” Annette says, “Mercie and I are going to have a movie night on Sunday, do you want to come?”

She has plans with Sylvain on Sunday, she’s about to politely decline when Dorothea slides in next to her.

“Ingrid’s got a date!” Dorothea chirps happily.

Ingrid flushes, looks around the room, hoping that no one else heard. It’s true but she doesn’t want it announced to the whole school. She hadn’t even told Dorothea so she has no idea how she knows. She wonders if perhaps Sylvain…

But if he had slipped up, he would have warned her.

“How did you-?” Ingrid splutters,

Dorothea’s grin is wicked as she grabs onto Ingrid’s arm and shakes her, “Oh my god, I knew it! I _knew_ you had a secret boyfriend.”

She wants to say _he’s not my secret boyfriend_ but that feels disingenuous, even if she has never used the word. She hadn’t really thought too much about it, it didn’t really seem to matter, but Sylvain feels like her boyfriend, she realizes.

Ingrid ducks her head feeling weirdly shy by the eyes on her, “It’s new.” She says instead, poking the chicken in her container with the fork, “We’re still just getting to know each other.”

It’s not really a lie but it’s not entirely honest either because in the short time she and Sylvain have been dating, she feels like she’s been with him for much longer, feels like she’s known him forever.

Maybe it’s because she’s worked with him for so long, has been friends with him for all this time. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

“I can’t believe I haven’t vetted him yet.” Dorothea sighs dramatically before perking up, “When do we get to meet him?”

Ingrid bites her lip. She doesn’t know how not to tell Dorothea that she already has. That he’s in the same building, playing chess with Claude or messing with Ferdinand.

Annette, bless her, steers the topic strategically, “What’s he like?” she asks hurriedly.

“He’s-”

Dorothea interrupts her before she can finish, “Don’t say he’s nice.” She says seriously, “Nice is for guys you want to dump. Please tell me he’s better than just nice.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with nice.” Mercedes hums encouragingly, but not without shooting Dorothea a very brief and easily missable look.

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being nice.” Dorothea explains unfazed, waving her hand, “I just think Ingrid deserves someone a little better than just nice.”

“I was going to say he’s charming,” Ingrid says with a wry smile. “But yes, he’s nice too. Well, sometimes. Sometimes he’s a jerk.”

Annette frowns, “Yeah, I get that.”

All three sets of eyes turn to Annette and Dorothea sets about teasing the poor girl mercilessly for it as Mercedes tries not to look as amused as she actually is.

—

Ingrid is exhausted by Friday for many reasons. As the weeks roll out closer and closer to summer, everyone’s stamina dies as the heat rises. The seniors she teaches are deep in a bout of senioritis and Ingrid doesn’t have the heart to scold them. They have had four years of high school, they deserve a little bit of leeway. The rest of the students are worrying over finals.

The other reason is much more personal. She has spent every night this week eating dinner with Sylvain and heading home way too late. She always means to leave earlier but he is very distracting and persuasive and honestly, she doesn’t mind it but she refuses to stay over on a weekday. There is too much risk there.

The last thing she needs, the _absolute_ last, would be to walk of shame into her own classroom because she didn’t have time to go home and change.

It is this exhaustion that Linda takes advantage of when she suggests having class outside and the rest of the class readily agrees.

It really is a nice day. There is no rule against it, in fact, she knows Ignatz regularly takes his art classes outside to sketch and she’s seen Lysithea march a terrified geometry class around to measure the dimensions of the various school buildings. Ingrid has just never done it herself but given the weather, the overall morale and the way they all loudly plead, she agrees.

Her Medieval Lit class are her stars and they deserve a little treat. She’ll sincerely miss teaching the subject next year when it’s Ashe’s turn again.

She considers the different places on campus they could go but then Billy stands up, says he has an idea, and leads them out to the front lawn.

Where Sylvain’s class is curiously already sitting out in the sun, listening to him lecture.

She starts to suggest they find somewhere else but the class has already made a circle in the grass, just far enough away that they won’t be distracted by Sylvain’s voice but close enough that he’s within her line of sight for the entire hour.

—

Ingrid wakes up on Monday morning to the quiet breathing of Sylvain right next to her. She reaches over to her phone, where it sits on his nightstand almost dead, looks at the time and date and completely and utterly _panics._

“Sylvain!” She shouts, throwing the covers off and elbowing him in the face without noticing, “Get up!”

Sylvain, bleary-eyed, confused, and elbowed groans, “Wha-?”

“We’re going to be late!” She continues to shout, eyes darting around the room for her clothes and only finding her underwear. “We’re going to be late and I don’t have any clothes that aren’t Friday’s and-”

“Ingrid!” Sylvain interrupts, fully awake now and sitting up, rubbing his nose, “Calm down!”

“Calm down?” She glares, “I can’t calm down, do you know how suspicious it’ll be if we’re both late for work and I walk in only my underwear because - _where on earth are my clothes?!_ ”

“Ingrid,” Sylvain says again, he’s chuckling. How can he chuckle about this? “It’s a three day weekend.”

“Oh.” She says. The adrenaline hasn’t quite faded and she’s realizing now that she’s standing in the middle of his bedroom, completely bare, underwear halfway up, and panicking.

“Mmm, now will you come back to bed?”

She does.

—

“Half of the student body is in love with you,” Ingrid tells him later while waiting for the coffee to brew and leaning back against his marble countertop. She has accidentally spent the entire weekend with him, lazying about mostly in his clothes all around his giant house.

She thinks briefly about the possibility of maybe leaving some things here. Just so that there wouldn’t be any more potential incidents.

“No, they aren’t.” He says, running a hand through his hair, making his bedhead worse. He’s thrown a shirt on, which is a shame, but at least he’s still wearing his glasses.

“It’s true.” She insists as she takes the pot and pours them each a mug. “I bet if we open a random locker pictures of you would fall out or Claude, one of you two.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a fireable offense.” He grimaces as he reaches for the pantry to take out the sugar and goes about fixing the coffee. She notes, with great interest, that he knows how she likes to take it.

“I’m serious.” She grins, accepting the coffee he hands her before he joins her in leaning against the countertop, “ _My_ class is obsessed with you at least. Every other day, Linda Schaffer asks me questions about you and Friday? Orchestrating the lawn class at the same time? Can’t be a coincidence.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how heartbroken will she be when she finds out I have a girlfriend?”

It’s the first time he’s called her that. He says it casually but she can tell, with the way his shoulder tenses, only for a second, that it wasn’t as easy as he makes it out to be.

“I’m more worried about Billy.” She says, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, “He’s the one who lead us out to you. He’s big and tough but he’s really quite sensitive.”

Sylvain’s smile is full-blown. She knows it has nothing to do with Billy or her class or anything about work. She knows because she’s smiling right back with that same smile.

“Wait,” he says suddenly, “Did you say Linda Schaffer?”

“Yeah,” She says, “One of yours too?”

“No, but I teach a Minnie Schaffer who is always asking about you.”

Ingrid sighs, this was something she had suspected for a long time now. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“I’m pretty sure our kids are trying to get us together.”

“Oh, well yeah.” Sylvain grins, “My kids been doing that since you moved into the classroom next door.”

This is complete news to Ingrid. She cannot ever recall the phrase Mr. Gautier being said in her classroom as many times as it has in these last two months. “No they haven’t!”

“They’ve just been a lot more aggressive this year.” Sylvain laughs, “I told you they knew about my big crush on you. I think they’ve just noticed that maybe you have a giant crush on me too.”

“So the marker thing…”

“I’m pretty sure one of your students swiped it and put it in my desk yeah.”

Ingrid covers her face with her free hand, “We have got to do a better job at hiding this.” She sighs.

“It’s all in good fun Ingrid.” He smiles, “They’re playing cupid. No harm in that. Especially since it worked.”

She punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Seriously though,” She says, ignoring the way he wiggles his eyebrows, “We have to be more careful.”

He nods, looking a bit dejected, but then he perks up. “But summer’s around the corner.”

Summer, in which there is no school and she can spend every day with Sylvain if she wanted to. Where she doesn’t have to drive home at midnight, wishing she could just stay over and not have to be hyper-aware of what they can say at work.

“It is.”

She’ll still have to hide it from their friends but it’s significantly easier to hide it when they don’t all see each other every single day.

She puts her mug down on the countertop and moves to stand in front of him so she can wrap her arms around his neck. Sylvain’s hands go to her waist after he places his coffee next to hers. “We should go somewhere.” He says, voice very low, “Take a trip.”

She answers him with a kiss. She can’t wait for summer.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Discord Server who are totally terribly bad influences and who helped me brainstorm this, but also for everyone else who has been quietly reading and watching alongside us. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my finisher for Sylvgrid Week!
> 
> Extra thanks to sunnilee for the series title.


End file.
